Brecourt Manor Assault

The Brecourt Manor Assault (6 June 1944) was a skirmish fought between Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, US 506th Infantry Regiment and a force of 60 German Wehrmacht troops defending a howitzer position along Le Grand Chemin in Normandy, France. Lieutenant Richard Winters, the acting commander of Easy Company, was ordered to take out the four howitzers to allow for the American landing at Utah Beach to proceed successfully, so the company split into two three-man squads and a central assault force. Winters led the main assault on the battery as the other squads drew German fire, and Carwood Lipton saw to it that the German guns were destroyed by dynamite. The Americans succeeded in destroying the guns, and they withdrew as they came under heavy machine-gun fire from Brecourt Manor.